No doubt many Tsubamegun readers were weary of reading too much into last night’s score, as the last time the Swallows won big it marked the beginning of a 10 game losing streak. While it may be too early to predict that the team has turned things around, the Swallows did show tonight that they could win 2 in a row.

Swallows

Hawks

1

Milledge (CF)

1

Akashi (SS)

2

Noguchi (LF)

2

Honda (2B)

3

Kawabata (SS)

3

Uchikawa (LF)

4

Hatakeyama (1B)

4

Matsuda (3B)

5

Iihara (RF)

5

Pena (DH)

6

Miyamoto (3B)

6

Tamura (RF)

7

Aikawa (C)

7

Egawa (1B)

8

Tanaka (2B)

8

Fukuda (CF)

9

J. Matsui (DH)

9

Hosokawa (C)

P

Ishikawa

P

Settsu

The Swallows struck first in the 2nd after Hiroyasu singled home a run after a 2 out hit-and-walk by MIyamoto and Aikawa. 1-0 Swallows

The Hawks tied the game in the 5th after Pena lead off the inning with a double, advanced on a Tamura ground out, and a Egawa sac fly. 1-1 All

The Hawks took the lead one inning later after Hosokawa scored on a Uchikawa grounder. 2-1 Hawks

Despite giving up the lead Ishikawa was pitching a much better game than Settsu giving up only 3 hits to Settsu’s 5 through 6 innings. But it was in the 7th inning that the Swallows got to Settsu.

Things started with a bunt hit attempt by Milledge that ended in bad throw by Settsu allowing Milledge to get on first. Akiyama tried to argue runner interference, but Milledge was given the base. Noguchi followed with a fake bunt and hit to left to put men on the corners. Settsu walked Kawabata to load the bases, and Hatake made him pay by hitting into left to score 2. 3-2 Swallows The Hawks decided to pull Settsu in favor of Yoshikawa. With men on first and second and no out, Iihara tried to bunt the runners into scoring position but Yoshikawa decided to get the harder out at third and failed, loading the bases. Miyamoto gave up the first out of the inning on a shallow fly to right, but Aikawa managed a hit to right to add another run for the Swallows. 4-2 Swallows Hiroyasu followed with a deep enough fly ball to right to add yet another run. 5-2 Swallows Yoshikawa ended his night with a walk to a pinch-hitting Fujikawa to load the bases. Fortunately for the Swallows Yoshikawa’s replacement, Kim, wasn’t much better. Kim gave up a wild pitch allowing Iihara to score, and all the runners to advance. 6-2 Swallows Milledge wokred the count full and got an infield single to score Aikawa to end the scoring for the night. 7-2 Swallows

Ishikawa shut out the Hawks the rest of the way, and got his second complete game victory for the year. The Swallows face the Hawks again tomorrow at the Fukuoka Dome.

Kozo Ota is a third-generation Swallows fan that grew up on Montreal Expos baseball. (You can read more about that here.) When he’s not at Jingu, he works as a freelance translator/interpreter to make enough money to go to Jingu. You can find random posts by Kozo on Google+ and Twitter.

Baseball Oogie

Two big Swallows wins in a row and the first no-hitter in Mets history.

I’m not sure I can take much more good baseball news.

Fisherk5000

Sweeping SoftBank makes me quite happy!
Over Golden week, I travelled down to Fukuoka as part of my year of visiting every NPB stadium. While the city was awesome, their local team and fans were insufferable!

Their cheer this year is “bui bui” (or V V [for victory] when not katakanized). What made this worse was that their in-stadium announcer is a foreigner who plays along with the ‘bui bui’.
Anyway, while I’m fairly impassionate regarding the pacific league, I’m now just as much (or even moreso) ‘anti-Hawks’ as I have been anti-Giants (at least the misguided Tokyo friends who support the Giants do so even when the Kyojin aren’t dominant, but the Hawks just seem to

Fisherk5000

Got cut off there! Anyway, the Hawks just seem to be quite deserving of some ire!
I’ll be at the Monday, July 2 Seibu “@” SoftBank in Toko Dome on May 2 to cheer against the temporary residents of the Dome 😀